Friday, February 10, 2012

The MC5 - Phun City, UK

This bootleg was recorded at the Phun City Festival in
Worthing, UK in 1970. By all reports, the Five slayed at this show and showed
the Limeys how it was done in Detroit! Unfortunately, being a boot from 1970
means that the sound quality is pretty spotty, as best. Very muddy, but you are
still able to hear all of the instruments (though not with the best mix, by any
stretch of the imagination), though the audience is almost inaudible, which
means that it doesn’t sound quite as exciting as it might have.

This set opens with their usual Wayne Kramer-falsetto-led “Rambling
Rose”, with crude lines such as “the more you suck it, the more it grows” – yes
they were cocky (literally!) at this show! Up next is the fabulous “Tonight”,
from Back in the USA and an all-too-long pause with some non-sequitor-ish
(without the visuals) stage patter before moving into “Rama Lama (Fa Fa Fa)”.
The guitars are not quite as fierce as on Kick Out the Jams, so this version is
a bit tamer, though still strong and with a good audience interplay and dynamic
section in the middle.

The group loses their momentum with the inclusion of Kramer’s
ballad, “Miss X”, which was the weakest song off of their then latest album, High
Times, but regain their footing with a high-energy “Looking At You”. The
highlight of the set, for me, is the feedback-drenched “I Want You”, starting
with literally minutes of nothing but noise. Dennis Thompson shows why he got the
nickname “Machine Gun” as he barrels into the tune and the guitars are quite
powerful and over-driven here. The middle section has more guitar interplay between Smith & Kramer
than on their debut and there is much more dynamic work, with a number of
builds and releases (appropriate for a song about sex) and a whole new jam
portion, making this almost a whole new tune. Pretty damn superb!

“Sister Anne” is also strong, though they seem to be
blowing out the recording mic at this point, which mars the sound quite badly,
and the solo seems a little off, as well. An incredible song, but a pretty
awful recording. They close with their usual “Kick Out the Jams”/”Black to Comm”,
which is always anything but “usual”. "KOTJ" is rockin’ as ever – this is the
pure definition of high-energy r’n’r – and while BTC sounds like it was probably
amazing in person, here the tape starts flipping out and speeding up and
slowing down, so it is hardly a faithful document. In fact, it sounds something
like a vacuum cleaner in being used while you are trying to listen to the song.

All in all, this would only be recommended to purist fans, as the sound quality is pretty dreadful. But, it is a good document of the group just before it was about to split up.